St.Andrew was adopted as the spiritual founder of Constantinople, (Mem.Eccles.tom.i.

p.
317-323, 588-594.)] [Footnote 73: Jerom (tom.ii.p.

122) pompously describes the translation of Samuel, which is noticed in all the chronicles of the times.] [Footnote 74: The presbyter Vigilantius, the Protestant of his age, firmly, though ineffectually, withstood the superstition of monks, relics, saints, fasts, &c., for which Jerom compares him to the Hydra, Cerberus, the Centaurs, &c., and considers him only as the organ of the Daemon, (tom.ii.p.

120-126.) Whoever will peruse the controversy of St.Jerom and Vigilantius, and St.Augustin's account of the miracles of St.Stephen, may speedily gain some idea of the spirit of the Fathers.] In the long period of twelve hundred years, which elapsed between the reign of Constantine and the reformation of Luther, the worship of saints and relics corrupted the pure and perfect simplicity of the Christian model: and some symptoms of degeneracy may be observed even in the first generations which adopted and cherished this pernicious innovation.
I.The satisfactory experience, that the relics of saints were more valuable than gold or precious stones, [75] stimulated the clergy to multiply the treasures of the church.

Without much regard for truth or probability, they invented names for skeletons, and actions for names.
The fame of the apostles, and of the holy men who had imitated their virtues, was darkened by religious fiction.